As Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post reports, the Republican Senate campaign of Joe Miller has sent out campaign communications bragging:

We all know that Joe’s campaign isn’t receiving any monies from corporations or out of state entities.

Grim counters this claim by sleuthing out that Joe Miller is hiring a DC Beltway fundraiser, an act incompatible with an Alaska-only money stance. But you needn’t go that far to see that the Miller campaign’s claims about itself are misleading. Just check Joe Miller’s official Federal Election Commission campaign reports and you’ll see that Joe Miller has accepted out-of-state contributions from 1 PAC and 22 people in 13 different states, none of which is (or even rhymes with) Alaska.

The Boulder Institute of Sustainability proved unsustainable. I wonder what its members are studying now.

On the subject of jobs, congressman Patrick Tiberi likes to talk tough, declaring over and over again what Congress must do to bring jobs back to America:

Jobs, not health care, should be the focus of Congress and the president, U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Genoa Township) told the Westerville Area Chamber of Commerce Tuesday.

“That’s where the focus should be — jobs and the economy,” Tiberi said.

As I’ve been saying our focus in Congress should be on creating an environment friendly to job-creation.

Yes, Pat Tiberi can shove out news releases with the best of them. But the sticky bit is that Tiberi belongs to the very body he says must move into action. Pat Tiberi could help remedy what he says is Congress’ woeful inaction on American jobs by putting down the mike and picking up a pen. Instead of simply complaining that the Congress isn’t doing what he’d like, Pat Tiberi could do what members of Congress usually do when they see a problem: introduce a bill to resolve that problem.

In the 111th Congress of 2009-2010, has Pat Tiberi introduced any bill with any focus whatsoever on jobs? No.
Has Pat Tiberi introduced any amendment or even symbolic resolution with any focus whatsoever on jobs? No.
Has Tiberi even introduced any bill or amendment or resolution that could create (as he put it) “an environment friendly to job creation”? No.
Heck, has Tiberi even created any budget earmarks that would direct money to his district to create jobs there? No.

Pat Tiberi has introduced seven bills to the U.S. Congress since he was last elected. Five of these are entirely symbolic bills that don’t accomplish anything, but only make declarations (like Tiberi’s declaration that “jobs should be the focus of Congress”): to celebrate an Antarctic treaty forged 50 years ago, to congratulate a local soccer team for winning a game, to rename a post office, to name September “Brain Aneurysm Month”, and to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the use of telescopes for astronomy. Two bills introduced by Pat Tiberi since he last got elected accomplish something: one bill would give one particular family an immigration exemption, and another would review unidentified corpses to determine their veteran status.

That’s all Patrick Tiberi has to his name in the 111th Congress. For a time when so many residents in his district are losing their jobs, Pat Tiberi is writing bills to commemorate telescope usage, rename post offices and recall the glory days of South Pole diplomacy. Although he chastises everybody else in Congress for failing to do anything about American jobs, he doesn’t lift a finger to solve the problem himself.

In this year’s race for Ohio’s 12th District seat in Congress, Democratic challenger Paula Brooks has received more in campaign contributions from the people of Ohio ($723,795) than Republican incumbent Patrick Tiberi has ($712,701).

In total campaign dollars, however, Pat Tiberi holds an immense advantage, with a warchest of $2,118,311. Paula Brooks has only $994,336 at her disposal. This is a decisive imbalance that could decide the race.

The difference: Pat Tiberi has collected $1,198,022 in PAC contributions from corporate entities. Paula Brooks has collected just $158,074 in PAC contributions. If money is a determinative factor in this race, Pat Tiberi will likely win due to his advantage in attracting the investment of corporate interests.

In today’s primary election in Louisiana, the U.S. Senate seat currently held by David Vitter is up for grabs. Vitter is running for re-election, but has two challengers: Nick Accardo and Chet Traylor. Accardo lacks a campaign web site, and Traylor’s site now features only advertisements for online resources such as “Free Sugar Daddy Dating”. On the Democratic side, U.S. Representative Charles Melancon, a right wing Democrat, is competing only against minor players Cary Deaton and Neeson Chauvin, whose campaigns are so anemic that they lack even the most basic presence on the Internet. It looks like a fair bet that the two party establishments’ choices will win the Senate primary today. Indeed, with about 65 percent of the precincts now reporting, Melancon and Vitter are far, far ahead of their rivals.

The state of Louisiana has seven congressional districts, but there are primary contests in only four of these districts – and only for one political party in some of those. Most Louisiana voters don’t have a choice for who will stand for them in the general election for the U.S. House of Representatives this November. The 1st, 6th, and 7th districts lack competitive primaries. In the 5th, 6th, and 7th districts, there is no Democratic candidate at all. Remember that these districts were never put into play by the Democratic Party when you read stories about the Republicans’ advantage this year. The Democrats certainly can’t win in districts where they don’t even bother to put forward a candidate.

In the 2nd congressional district, incumbent Joseph Cao, who won a special election to his seat just this year, faces no Republican challenger. There are four Democrats competing for the right to challenge Cao in the general election this year, however: Cedric Richmond, Juan LaFonta, Gary Johnson and Eugene Green. At this hour, only one fifth of precincts are reporting in this district, but the vote so far shows Richmond with almost a 45 percent lead over the other Democratic candidates. Update: With 100 percent of the vote counted, Richmond has maintained nearly a 40 point lead.

There is no contest for the Democratic nomination for the 3rd district seat, being vacated by Senate candidate Charles Melancon. Ravi Sangisetty is the only Democrat running. There are three Republicans contending for their party’s nomination in this district, though: Hunt Downer, Jeff Landry and Kristian Magar. 80 percent of 3rd district precincts are now reporting vote tallies, and Landry has a 15 percent lead, with Hunt Downer in second place. Update: Trailing by just over 13 points, Hunt Downer still has gained enough of the vote to take part in a runoff election against Jeff Landry.

Incumbent John Fleming, who has pledged to wage a battle against atheists in order to transform the United States into a “Christian nation, is the only Republican running in the 4th congressional district. Steven Gavi and David Melville are competing for the Democratic nomination. With 73 percent of precincts reporting, Melville seems the certain winner, with a lead of over 60 percent. Update: Melville won, 81 percent to 19 percent.

In the 5th district, incumbent Rodney Alexander, who turned coat several years ago and switched from the Democratic Party to the Republicans, is facing a primary challenge from Todd Slavant. Slavant’s campaign hasn’t gained much traction, however, and with only 92 percent of precincts reporting, has only earned 10.7 percent of the vote. In spite of Alexander’s betrayal of them, the Louisiana Democrats aren’t running a candidate to try to take this seat away from him. That’s a big zero percent for the 5th district Democrats.

At the Union Fair this year, the Knox County Republican Party paid for a tent placed prominently on the midway. Over the course of the last three days the Knox County GOP tent has been uniformly staffed by one person and often by two people engaging in animated conversation with passersby. Lawn signs have been handed out for free, and every time I visited the tent a Paul LePage for governor bumper sticker was pressed into my hand. Buttons and t-shirts sporting American flags and made in sweatshops in Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras and Mexico were for sale.

The Knox County Democratic Party, on the other hand, had a few pieces of literature and a sign-up sheet placed on a table in the middle of the craft barn. Over the three days I went to the fair, I never once saw anybody actually staffing the table.

I don’t agree with the divisive, us-versus-them principles of the Knox County GOP, but at least there’s some evidence for their existence, and I’m not just talking about the fair. There are Paul LePage lawn signs and buttons and bumper stickers and t-shirts and caps visible all over midcoast Maine; I’ve not seen so much as a button announcing Democratic candidate Libby Mitchell’s existence. The Knox County Republican Party has a headquarters replete with signage up on Route 1 in the middle of Knox County where everybody drives. The Knox County Democratic Party has a P.O. Box and no visible headquarters; it holds meetings at a Stella Maris House.

The tally in November is what matters, but right now where I live the GOP has the hustle.

“Daddy! We got a DVD of war! We can watch it at home!” That voice, coming from a 5 year-old boy, was my first clue as to what was going on at the Trumansburg Fair today.

Two military armored vehicles were parked by the entrance to the Fairgrounds. Preschoolers were crawling all over them. I watched a National Guard soldier pick up a toddler young enough that she might not even be potty trained, and put her in the gun turret on top of one of the vehicles, helping her to handle the massive weapon there.

I saw a nearly constant stream of elementary school boys walk up to the National Guard station and be given a wide variety of guns to handle. Sometimes the soldiers watched the children they had given guns to. Sometimes they didn’t. The children swung the guns about wildly, as if they were playing war, pretending to shoot targets in the crowd. I saw them aim the guns at other children. I watched as boys fought over the guns, grabbing them from each other as members of the National Guard looked the other way.

As I looked on this scene, I thought of the many stories I had read about children who hadn’t been taught proper gun safety, and then ended up dead, or accidental killers. Among the more recent of these stories:

- The four year-old in Pennsylvania who shot himself in the head
- The 10 year-old girl who is barely clinging to life in Tennessee after her friend shot her through the brain with a BB gun
- The 15 year-old in California who died after shooting himself with a handgun
- The mother in Massachusetts who is on trial for manslaughter after her 7 year old son accidentally killed his cousin with a pistol kept in their house.

The National Guard is supposed to work to keep us all safe. The idiots at the Trumansburg Fair, handing guns over to kids as if they were toys, were encouraging unsafe behavior in our youngest generation.

I suppose that the National Guard was trying to promote itself, but they ended up delivering a negative image, of a sloppy organization that puts America’s kids in harm’s way, instead.

A search of Federal Elections Commission and Maine Campaign Finance data from January 1, 2000 to August 15, 2010 for the general term “Tea Party” and these particular Maine Tea Party groups…

6th District
912 Project of Downeast Maine
Aroostook County Questions To Our Representatives
Aroostook Tea Party Patriots
Charleston Tea Party
Cumberland County Tea Party
Maine Patriots
Maine ReFounders
Paint Maine Red
Piscataquis Tea Party
Portland Tea Party
Tea Party – 912 project Greater Bangor
Tea Party Maine
Tea Party Patriots of the Sunrise County

… reveals that the only campaign contributions coming from any Tea Party group in the entire state of Maine are two contributions made by passing the hat in two different cities at Tea Party events three months apart in 2009.

Those contributions were dedicated to The Republican Project, a political committee that describes its primary goal: to “Support Republican Party and associated issues and candidates”.

John McCain beats Tea Party challenger in Arizona — BBC Headline, 8.25.10
John McCain survives Tea Party challenge at US primaries — UK Guardian Headline, 8.25.10

There’s a subject in the study of of social organizations called “boundary specification”: how do you determine whether a person is or isn’t a member of a group? If you set a high standard for inclusion (a tight boundary), you’ll end up identifying a small group. If you set a low standard for inclusion (a loose boundary), you’ll end up identifying a large group.

Boundary specification is an intellectual task for academics, but it’s also a strategic tool for hawkers and hucksters and organizers. A few years back, Paul Hawken tried to position himself as a visionary by identifying an absolutely huge “Civil Society Movement” that no one had seen before. His gimmick was to specify an incredibly large boundary for his “Movement,” including just about every non-government non-profit organization, regardless of whether they had any sort of shared goals or history of cooperation. As a result, Hawken managed to say he’d found a really, really big “movement.” That was a strategic win for Hawken personally, because it meant he sold a lot of books, but the “movement” itself hasn’t gone anywhere, because as a coherent, coordinated movement it doesn’t actually exist.

Political journalists looking for a Story of the Year to cover and conservative activists looking to frame themselves as the Movers and Shakers of the Year have done more than a little boundary specification work of their own lately. They’ve identified a social movement called the “Tea Party,” and they’ve drawn the boundaries of this movement so expansively that it can’t help but have some presence. If we limit the boundaries of the “Tea Party” movement to independent, non-partisan political organizations, then the “Tea Party” movement is profoundly inactive: of the 49 independent, non-partisan PACs and Section 527 organizations registered with the FEC and IRS naming themselves with the “Tea Party” label, only one (the Cincinnati Tea Party) has gathered enough funds in 2009 and 2010 to engage meaningfully in the political process:

All of these are dwarfed by the “Tea Party Express,” which is not an independent and non-partisan group. It is a funded effort of the Republican Party. If you expand your boundary specification for the “Tea Party” movement to include the “Tea Party Express,” then you get a big and impactful social movement… but then you can’t call the “Tea Party” movement an independent and non-partisan movement any longer. At least, you can’t do that if you’re going to be intellectually honest.

To say as the BBC does that John McCain’s unsuccessful challenger in the Arizona Republican Senate primary is a “Tea Party challenger” is again to stretch the boundaries of the “Tea Party” movement to a meaningless extent. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona is a long-time Washington DC Beltway Republican politician, having been a GOP member of Congress for 12 years. During his entire twelve-year tenure he was a member of the ruling majority party. Hayworth sat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee and developed a number of insider connections, including financial ties to Jack Abramoff. J.D. Hayworth is not an outside agitator; he is a long-term inside member of the Republican Party.

Nor could it be said that there were organized Tea Party forces in Arizona coming out to financially support J.D. Hayworth. Of all the group contributions to the Hayworth campaign, only two came from Arizona, according to Federal Election Commission data: $10,000 from the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association PAC, and $125 as a gift from the failed congressional campaign of Republican Sam Crump. On the other hand, Hayworth, received $12,250 from PACs established in states other than Arizona and $13,000 from PACs based in Washington DC. Also according to FEC data, J.D. Hayworth actually collected more individual contributions from out of state than from in Arizona. That’s not a sign of a campaign based in grassroots social movement outrage at home.

Was J.D. Hayworth at least endorsed by Tea Party groups in Arizona? Could be have been a “Tea Party” candidate in that sense? Apparently not: the four largest Tea Party organizations in Arizona came together during the primary season and jointly refused to endorse J.D. Hayworth. None of the four leaders of these Tea Party organizations sent J.D. Hayworth a campaign contribution, either.

J.D. Hayworth was a long-standing figure in the Republican Party who lost a primary bid for a Senate seat to another long-standing figure in the Republican Party. That’s the truth. Any effort to explain this in terms of some “Tea Party” is pushing the boundaries of that movement far too far.

Yesterday was congressional primary day in Florida – a big political day because Florida is a heavily populated state, with 25 congressional districts. Most of those districts had actual contests yesterday – but in one district, there won’t be any contest at all, not even in the general election. Primaries were completely lacking in the 4th, 7th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th, and 23rd districts yesterday.

In Florida’s 21st congressional district, the incumbent, Lincoln Diaz-Balart, is retiring. Lincoln’s brother, Republican Mario Diaz-Balart, who is already a member of the House of Representatives, carpet bagged it on over to the 21st district, and wasn’t challenged by the local GOP. You’d think that 21st district Democrats would organize an opposition to this nepotism, but no, they didn’t. Mario Diaz-Balart is the only candidate in the district, period. So, 21st district voters have a choice this year. They can vote for the inheritor of the Diaz-Balart estate, or they can not vote at all.

The 1st congressional district also lacks a Democratic candidate. Incumbent Republican U.S. Representative Jeff Miller wasn’t challenged from within his own party either. There are two independent candidates, John Krause and Joe Cantrell, but neither of them offers a strong ideological alternative to Miller.

The Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by George LeMieux was won by current U.S. Representative Kendrick Meek. Marco Rubio easily won the Republican nomination, with 85 percent of the GOP vote.

In the 2nd congressional district, Democratic incumbent Allen Boyd defeated a challenge by Al Lawson. Five candidates competed for the Republican nomination. Steve Southerland won that contest – almost 2 to 1.

The incumbent in the 3rd district, Corrine Brown, also fought off an interparty challenge, winning over Democrat Scott Fortune 80 percent to 20 percent. Mike Yost won the Republican nomination.

Republican incumbent Ginny Brown-Waite is not running for re-election in the 5th district this year. Her choice for successor, Rich Nugent, won the GOP nomination over Jason Sager. Democrat Jim Piccillo faced no competition for his party’s nomination.

In the 6th congressional district, there is no Democrat running for Congress. There is an independent, Steve Schonberg, but he will be hard pressed to defeat Republican incumbent Cliff Stearns, who defeated GOP rival Don Browning yesterday.

Alan Grayson coasted through yesterday’s primaries unchallenged. Republicans in the 8th district, however, supported seven different candidates to run against Grayson in the general election. Daniel Webster won the GOP nomination.

9th district Republican incumbent Gus Bilirakis faced no rival yesterday. Anita de Palma won the Democratic nomination there, 19 points ahead of Phil Hindahl.

In the 11th district, Democratic incumbent Kathy Castor soundly defeated Tea Party activist Tim Curtis for the Democratic nomination. Mike Prendergast won the GOP nomination.

Republican incumbent Adam Putnam has decided to leave the 12th district’s congressional seat to campaign for the position of State Agricultural Commissioner. Dennis Ross will replace him as the Republican Party’s nominee. A Tea Party candidate, John Lindsey, lost that contest. Lori Edwards will be the Democratic nominee.

13th district incumbent Vern Buchanan trounced Don Baldauf for the Republican nomination. James Golden defeated Rick Eaton for the Democratic nomination by a 14-point margin.

No Republican challenged incumbent Tom Rooney yesterday. There was a Democratic contest, however, in which Jim Horn defeated Ed Tautiva by over 40 points.

In the 17th district, the Democrat voters selected to replace Senate candidate Kendrick Meek was Frederica Wilson, winning two-to-one over Rudy Moise. There is no Republican candidate in the district.

20th district incumbent Debbie Wasserman Schultz kept the Democratic Party’s nomination without a fight yesterday. For the Republican nomination, Karen Harrington narrowly defeated Robert Lowry – by just 2.4 percent.

Democratic incumbent Ron Klein defeated peace activist Paul Renneisen in the 22nd congressional district. Allen West will be the Republican nominee in that district.

Suzanne Kosmas, the Democratic incumbent in the 24th district, defeated a challenge from Paul Partyka. The winner of the Republican nomination there still isn’t sure, with Sandy Adams leading Karen Diebel by less than one percent, and Craig Miller close behind. Nicholas Ruiz will be the Green Party candidate for the seat.

In the 25th district, vacated by Mario Diaz-Balart, Joe Garcia won the Democratic nomination yesterday, defeating Luis Meurice by over 40 percent of the vote. David Rivera will be the Republican nominee.

The congressional primaries in Vermont brought no real surprises. Incumbent U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy defeated Democratic challenger Daniel Freilich by 78 points. Len Britton had no competition for the Republican nomination to the seat.

There was no challenger in the Democratic primary to incumbent U.S. Representative Peter Welch in Vermont’s at-large congressional district. The Republican nomination was won by former talk show host Paul Beaudry, with John Mitchell coming in a close second, only 4 percentage points behind.

The congressional primaries of Arizona are gaining special attention tonight, because the man who was the Republican Party’s nominee for President two years ago is struggling this year just to maintain his job in the U.S. Senate. John McCain is being challenged from within his own political party by former U.S. Representative J.D. Hayworth, as well as contractor Jim Deakin. On the Democratic side, Rodney Glassman, Cathy Eden and John Dougherty are struggling over the nomination. Jerry Joslyn is the unchallenged Green Party candidate for McCain’s Senate seat.

With nearly all the precincts in Arizona now reporting in, John McCain has a double digit lead over J.D. Hayworth, with Jim Deakin gaining only 11 percent of the vote. Rodney Glassman has a plurality of the Democratic vote, with an 8 point lead.

No Democrat has challenged incumbent U.S. Representative Ann Kirkpatrick. However, eight Republicans are contending over who will have the right to take on Kirkpatrick in the general election: Bradley Beauchamp, Rusty Bowers, Paul Gosar, Sydney Hay, Joe Jaraczewski, Jon Jensen, Steve Mehta, and Thomas Zaleski. Paul Gosar appears to have won the Republican nomination, with Sydney Hay coming in 8 points behind at 22.8 percent of the vote.

In the 2nd congressional district, GOP incumbent Trent Franks has successfully fended off Charles Black, by a margin of over 60 percent of the vote. There is only one Democratic candidate: John Thrasher.

3rd district incumbent John Shadegg is not running for re-election. Ten Republicans competed to take his place as the GOP nominee there: Bob Branch, Sam Crump, Pamela Gorman, LeAnn Hull, Steve Moak, Paulina Morris, Vernon Parker, Ben Quayle, Jim Waring, and Ed Winkler. Quayle led the pack, but only by a small plurality of 22 percent of the vote, less than 5 points ahead of the second place candidate, Steve Moak. John Hulburd is the only Democrat running for the seat.

Democratic incumbent Ed Pastor did not face a primary challenger in the 4th congressional district this year. Janet Contreras won the Republican nomination for the seat over Joe Penalosa, by a margin of over 19 points. Rebecca DeWitt is running as the Green Party candidate in the district.

In the 5th district, there was no challenger to Democratic incumbent Harry Mitchell. Five Republicans competed for the right to take him on in the general election this year, with David Schweikert coming in first, defeating second place Jim Ward by 12 points.

6th district incumbent Jeff Flake easily won the Republican nomination, with a 30 point lead over rival Jeff Smith. The uncontested nominees of the Democratic Party and the Green Party are Rebecca Schneider and Richard Grayson, respectively.

Democratic incumbent Raul Grijalva did not face a primary contest in the 7th district. Ruth McClung gained a majority of the vote in the Republican primary, though she faced four competitors, with a margin of victory over 25 points.

In the 8th congressional district, no Democrat ran against Gabrielle Giffords, the incumbent. Jesse Kelly won the Republican nomination by 8 points. Jonathan Paton came in second.

Given Alaska’s low population, there aren’t many congressional primaries held in the state today. There’s only one congressional district in the state, and just one U.S. Senate seat up for grabs this year.

Nonetheless, Alaska is getting a great deal of attention today, largely because Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee have endorsed Joe Miller, a Republican challenger to incumbent GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski. There’s a contest for the Democratic nomination to the seat as well, however, with “wireless electricity” promoter Jacob Seth Kern competing against Frank Vondersaar and Scott McAdams.

For Alaska’s at-large seat in the House of Representatives, Republican incumbent Don Young is facing a challenge from John Cox and Sheldon Fisher. On the Democratic side, there is no contest. Harry Crawford will be the nominee.

With 71 percent of precincts now reporting, the vote is as follows:

In his latest display of mental gymnastics, Republican candidate for Governor of New York State Carl Paladino has just completed either a disastrously unsuccessful triple lutz or a spot-on bellyflop:

As Governor I will use the power of eminent domain to stop this mosque and make the site a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country….

Andrew Cuomo supports the mosque. He says it is about “religious freedom” and he says the mosque construction should proceed. I say it is disrespectful to the thousands who died on Sept. 11 and their families, insulting to the thousands of troops who’ve been killed or injured in the ensuing wars and an affront to American people. And it must be stopped.

There is little to no democracy in the Middle East other than Israel. The Islamic fundamentalists are fascists — women have limited rights, there is no free speech or freedom of expression, and citizens are subject to the often barbaric Sharia Law. I oppose a mosque near the site of ground zero, not because of race, but because of the ideology of the Islamic fundamentalists.

Did you get that? Without a hint of irony, Carl Paladino declares that:

1. He opposes a religious activity of American Muslims, painting with a broad brush as “Islamic fundamentalist” the Cordoba House / Park51 project which has as its goals:

* Uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people

* Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities

* Encourage open discussion and dialogue on issues of relevance to New Yorkers, Americans and the international reality of our interconnected planet

2. He opposes the Cordoba House / Park51 center because he accuses the organizers of being “fascists — women have limited rights, there is no free speech or freedom of expression, and citizens are subject to the often barbaric Sharia Law.”

3. In response to his personal theories about this center being secretly run by “Islamic fundamentalists,” he declares that if elected Governor he’ll use the eminent domain power of government to seize the private property on which the Cordoba House / Park51 center is to be built. To what end? To prevent the exercise of free speech, free expression, free association and unfettered religion. Why does Carl Paladino think government can rescind the rights of Americans? “Because of the ideology” they believe in.

Carl Paladino needs a new campaign slogan. How about “Freedom must die / Long live freedom”?